Economics Nobel odds at iPredict

iPredict is running contracts on who will win this year's Nobel Prize in Economics. As I write Oliver Hart heads the field with a 25% chance, Robert Schiller, Richard Thaler, Martin Weitzman come next, all with an 18% chance of winning.

It does seem to be a market based on real money payments, though I am not sure how much liquidity is there. The direct link to the contracts is here and right now Thaler is leading. The link cited above is here and for the pointer I thank Eric Crampton.

I think the funniest outcome would be if this market picks someone besides Fama to win and then Fama wins based on his ideas of efficient markets.

wlu2009October 6, 2010 at 5:48 am

Someone should tell Nylund that "markets are efficeint" does not imply "markets are correct".

charlieOctober 6, 2010 at 6:16 am

and can we please stop calling it a nobel prize?

ricardoOctober 6, 2010 at 6:19 am

oh charlie…

_We_ will keep calling it a Nobel prize. _You_ can call it whatever you like.

SONORAMAOctober 6, 2010 at 7:05 am

The plucky New Zealanders run a good prediction market. I've been a member for the past year or so. They have lots of contracts and have automated "market-makers", so the spreads are tight. The market is nonprofit, run by a local university, so there are no fees, other than a current 2% fee on profits when you cash out. They're also very responsive to user suggestions of new contracts to run.

With several prediction markets now operating (including the Iowa Electronic Markets, New Zealand's iPredict, and Intrade in Ireland, it is now sometimes possible to arbitrage across different markets, although one must take into account that iPredict contracts are denominated in NZ dollars, and different markets often have slightly different contract terms that can make a big difference when it is time to determine outcome, particularly on "which political party will win this November" type of contracts.

Altogether, a lot of fun, and sometimes profitable.

londenioOctober 6, 2010 at 7:42 am

After years of following blogospheric predictions for the prize-colloquially-referred-to-as-the-Nobel-prize-in-Economics (some readers are very sensitive), I realize that they always predict the same names (Fama, Barro, Tirole, etc.) and they never even get close to the name that eventually wins (some people mentioned Williamson, I admit).

charlieOctober 6, 2010 at 8:37 am

dear ricardo; actually my name for it "Swedish Bank award for pig-entrail reading" but I can see how that would offend Jews.

It is very fashionable these days to talk about pushing the concept of promoting the most famous by Richard Thaler, an eternal and a strong candidate for the Nobel Prize for Economics. But is not pushing, perhaps more than an influence, imaginatively disguised.

Andrew1October 6, 2010 at 1:38 pm

Posner? If there was a Nobel Prize for Law (ha!), maybe, but what's his original contribution to economics? He took basic price theory and applied it to legal questions in ways that no one had done before, but I don't know whether that's a good enough contribution to the study of ECONOMICS.

Tyler gave the general argument for the econometricians, which I think has strength. The prize goes to some of them on a regular basis, and it has now been awhile. Plus, a prize to them would be uncontroversial, whereas their last two were controversial to varying degrees, and maybe they want a break from all the whining.

Although they differ among themselves, some whose names have been thrown around in some venues and would not be complete embarrassments might include White, Sims, Hansen, Manski, Johannson. Again, too bad that both of the deserving Goldberger and Zellner died during this past year.